Results tagged “neighborhoods”

Sunday. Usually, a quiet, contemplative day in the Blogosphere. But not here in the Ist-a-Verse. Nonono! Just look below and see all of the wild and crazy stuff our staffs are up to.

Actually, we’ve been eyeing the portable game console/music and video player ever since it came out a year ago. Our buying decision this holiday season has every bit to do with the PSP being a nifty gadget as it does some of the extra "resources" available to us as residents of Shanghai, or China for that matter. As far as we know, other than maybe the original NES, no video game console has ever been released here in China, and for a very good reason: rampant piracy of games. The PSP is no different. Machines for sale here are from either Europe or Japan, but with firmware downgraded/modified so that they can handle “backup” (read “pirated”) games. ISO images of PSP games are readily available at most BT sites — ISO Hunt and Torrentspy just to name a couple — as are music and videos.

It’s true, the first Pompidou Centre in China is landing in Shanghai. According to this report (in Chinese) by Oriental Morning Post, Renaud Donnedieude Vabres, culture minister of France, and Bruno Racine, president of the Pompidou Centre (we're going to call it the "PC" from now on), the first PC in Shanghai is going to cover 10,000 square meters at the intersection of Huaihai Zhong Lu and Songshan Lu, near the site of the old French concession police station (pictured). The report was kind of vague, as they often are, but the historic building is expected to be preserved and somehow incorporated into the project.

Austinist knows that few things in life are scarier than zombies, people with way too much money, and politicians who try too hard to be funny. Slightly less scary, depending on whom you ask, are indie film makers, screenwriters, R-Rated movies, and indie rockers.

We have told you about the photography of New York Times Shanghai bureau chief Howard W. French before. And now, there is more to report. Howard recently returned from Berlin, where he helped launch his "Disappearing Shanghai" photo exhibit at Zero Gallery. (So, yes -- in addition to writing for arguably the most respected newspaper in the world, he is also an accomplished photographer ... and he's fluent in like 17 different languages. Deal with it.)

Photo by Thomas Will taken from the Shanghaiist photos page. To see your photos on our photos page, use Flickr and tag your photos “shanghaiist”. Or you can email your photos to photos@shanghaiist.com and they will automatically appear on our site.

Londonist prepares a Happy Birthday bath for Buddah this week and then things get all cliched. A madman goes on a rampage while axe-wiedling and London's mayor warns an American diplomat to avoid the kitchen if the heat bothers him so much.

We just came across an interesting New York Times article about art, design and architecture in China. Much of it deals with the work of Ai Weiwei, an artist and designer (and son of famed poet Ai Qing), who has created a number of interesting living spaces, such as loft complexes, where the living space is near to or combined with gallery space:

Tim Kao, musician

Perhaps soon we will be able to place some of French's photos on our coffee tables. From the Daily Shooter interview:

Have you heard the one about the guy who suggested we lift up all the old buildings on the Bund several meters and cram a shopping mall underneath them? No? It's a good one. It goes something like --

"Only in Shanghai" is what Shanghaiist has been muttering ever since happening upon this article in the Shanghai Daily -- an area of Hongkou district which housed tens of thousands of Jews that fled Nazi Germany and WWII Europe is going to be turned into "the city's second Xintiandi with Jewish culture and characteristics". There will be kosher restaurants, museums, but we don't know yet if there will be a kosher McDonald's cafe or kosher Starbucks, or if the movie theater will serve as a venue for cutting edge films from great Israeli directors like Amos Gitai or Joseph Cedar.

On the heels of the recent forced-eviction protests in front of Shanghai's Portman Ritz-Carlton comes news that two city real estate agents were sentenced to death for torching the homes of residents who refused to abandon their neighborhoods in 2004 and 2005. One of the acts of arson killed an elderly couple back in January.

That's refreshing news. Not that Shanghaiist has anything in particular against Xintiandi. It's OK, in an Epcot Center sort of way. Maybe in 10 years or so, once the novelty wears off and the prices come down a bit, it will be a decent place to sit outside and have a beer. But we don't understand why we see so many red-hatted tour groups barrelling their way through the place, snapping photos. We don't understand why so many visitors are led to believe that there's anything old about the place at all. Xintiandi is not a neighborhood of restored old buildings. Old buildings were razed and residents were displaced to make way for Xintiandi. The same thing is happening now in the blocks that surround the Xintiandi area. The real estate is just too valuable. (And if the old neighborhoods must get chewed up and the old residents spit out, Shanghaiist would choose something that looks like Xintiandi as the lesser evil to get built in their place.)